overwhelming to watch this. >> police say glenda moore was -- >> that's all the time we have. stay with cnn throughout the night for late breaking developments. erin burnett out front starts right now. "out front" next the devastating view. president obama gets an up close view of the devastation across the state of new jersey. and i spent the day today in hoboken, new jersey, just across the hudson river from manhattan. tonight national guard troops are still going through the floodwaters trying to rescue people trapped in their homes. one of the largest hospitals in new york is being evacuated at this moment, the second hospital forced to be evacuated after losing power and relying on backup generators. the president of the hospital will join us live. let's go "out front."

good evening, everyone. i'm erin burnett. search and rescue. two days after one of the most devastating storms to hit the east coast of the united states, there's frustration, desperation, fear. people are cold, people are tired and people are hungry. dramatic scenes like this are playing out in new jersey and new york. watch this rescuer from the new york police department lowering himself onto a home in staten island, new york and a resident pulled through the roof and back to safety. police say just this one helicopter rescued five adults and one child yesterday and on the ground there are frantic searches among the most heartbreaking a search for two children ripped from their mother's arms during the storm two nights ago. that one is hard to even talk about. they are still unaccounted for. search and rescue teams spent the day double checking the 110 homes that went up in flames in breezy point, a part of queens

in new york, trying to make sure no one else died in the fire and flood and in hoboken, new jersey, the national guard is working around the clock to help those who have been holed up in their home for three days. most people were cold and there were makesaft waves they were trying to get through the water. the mayor estimates in hoboken 20,000 people could be trapped tonight. the death toll from sandy is now up to at least 48 people in eight states, and nearly 6 million people in 15 states and the nation's capital are still without power tonight. also today president obama got a firsthand look of the jersey shore, one of the areas hardest hit by sandy. he was accompanied by new jersey governor chris christie. here they are in a photo just released by the white house within the past hour on marine one. the president said he will help. >> we are here for you and we will not forget, we will follow up to make sure that you get all the help that you need until

you've rebuilt. >> the iconic boardwalk and seaside heights, new jersey, is just one of the places the president saw today. it's a landmark made famous by bruce springsteen, mtv and "the sopranos." this is before and after, to give you a sense of what's happened. it's not even all there. you can see the rides including the roller coaster have been washed away sitting in the ocean. michael holmes is just across the bay in toms river, new jersey. you were in seaside heights, you toured it, what did you see? >> reporter: we went right up and down a number of towns there, ocean beach, normandy, and we spent a couple of hours there with the local police chief and i can tell you, it was absolutely extraordinary, the amount of damage that was done by hurricane sandy, erin. you know, there's gas leaks there that have continued to be a problem. we've seen a stream of gas trucks go across the bridge onto those islands to try to shut off the gas.

there was one particular area up there in the area of brick where about three or four football fields' worth of houses had been burnt to the ground by fire started by gas leaks so it's a big problem. you can smell it in the air. this was the first opportunity we've had to get over there with our cameras, we were among the first to do so, and there were houses literally in the middle of the street that had been picked up by the force of the ocean and dumped in the middle of the road, still intact. we saw sink holes, one of them had huge full size pickup truck up to its windows in this sink hole. the sand, the dunes used to be about 12 feet tall, if you like. they are now nothing. they have gone, and houses have been exposed, they've been toppled over. the force of the water just blew through those dunes and raced through the ground, five-feet tall in some places and the damage is extraordinary. we actually saw the president's

helicopter fly past us while we were standing on the beach. we were, erin, in the surf club there the day that the hurricane rolled in. we went back there today, it is absolutely destroyed. >> it is hard to imagine what it will take for people to rebuild. we'll be joined by the mayor of seaside heights in a moment. michael, you had a chance to speak to some of the people there, to have the opportunity to be evacuated, and had chosen not to. how do they feel now? it's been several days and a lot of them are still awaiting rescue. >> you know, it's a mix of things, erin. we spoke to some of those people before the hurricane, and today going back and seeing some of them, they are ruing that decision. they didn't think it was going to be like this, even though they were told it was a mandatory evacuation, they thought they could ride it out. lot of them were feeling foolish feeling they made the wrong decision. there was also a touching one we saw, an elderly man and his wife, she had alzheimer's and he

chose to ride it out because she felt more comfortable in familiar surroundings of the home. he said if he had it over again he'd have packed up and left. about 300 people were pulled off. interestingly the police say no one will be left back on several days until it's safe. there are still a people in their houses refusing to leave. the police said if you come outside we'll take you into custody and take you off the island. if you stay indoors we'll leave awe lone. >> you mentioned the sand. this is an area, i spent a lot of time coming back and forth, family lived there, and when you talk about the sand, is it literally blocking the roads? just give everyone a sense of how overwhelming it is, like it's all beach now, right? >> reporter: it's extraordinary. the beach, if you like, the beach goes about three or four blocks inland. all the sand was picked up, dumped down the road. yeah, it is an obstacle on many of those streets you can't drive

on because the sand is so deep and they've said, we've seen at least 20 or 30 front-end loaders go over and we saw them start to pick the sand up and dump it off the roadways. you imagine a 12-foot dune that is just not there anymore, that sand is all on the roadways in these little interconnected towns and communities. >> michael, thank you very much. giving us a real sense of the devastation there. bill akers is the mayor of seaside heights, i spoke to him just a couple moments ago and asked him what the most crucial issue that he is facing tonight is. >> the most crucial issues is making sure we can get all the gas leaks stopped, that we have to get that done before we can start thinking about restoring any kind of power. we don't want to have any explosions because we still don't have all of our response equipment over here, yet, fire trucks, things like that, if something was to happen with the

fire, we would need to handle that. as far as there are people, the second part of the question, there are definitely people we evacuated probably as much as 98% but we have people here. we have the state police, all of us going door to door 8:00 a.m. tomorrow, everyone that is here, that is remaining will be asked to leave. >> we're looking at some of the scenes here, it's hard to watch and i know for you it must just break your heart to see these pictures. how long do you think before this town will be back? >> i couldn't even venture a guess. it's an overwhelming task. i know there's going to be brighter minds than mine that are going to have to be involved in this with the process of planning and implementing it and getting everything going.

i guess the silver lining to all this is that the buildings, the structures and things like that, that have been destroyed, we have a lot of very, very good people around us, and that's what we're going to need to get this thing done. >> i know some of the people there, they say they're going back in and rebuilding and that's their attitude and it's wonderful to hear but hard to think about when you see those pictures. i know you had said, sir, that the damage could be severe, up to $1 billion, that would be more than the entire damage in the state of new jersey with the big hurricane. that's just to give people a sense of the scale, do you still think that's the kind of cost you're looking at to rebuild? >> as a layman that doesn't do that for a living, i absolutely do because what you're seeing in the overhead pictures, nobody's seen the structure damage, the foundations, the pilings are gone up at the boardwalk. we lost two complete piers. i mean, once they can get in and see these, i think you're going

to see condemnation on a lot of these properties. it's just, it's absolutely for the owners of these places, because there's generation of generation of families that go back at seaside heights. it's going to be heartbreaking when they go to realize what has happened to their properties. >> and some people watching may see these pictures and say isn't that the town that became fame news "jerry shore" and it is. this is that town and obviously it's a light-hearted show and now hard to sort of fit these images with that. mayor, do you think this is going to help in terms of the attention that you may get and people understanding the situation and helping? >> i would welcome any and all help and if that's what it takes to get some people interested in helping seaside heights, i welcome it. it can never be a bad thing to shed light on a serious

situation, and this is about as serious as it gets. >> amid all the destruction there are signs things are slightly returning to normal in some places. the stock exchange opened after being shut for two days and we want to show you this. this is the scene right now outside our building, traffic and i mean incredible traffic, gridlock like i have never experienced in my life in new york city. it's something that has been missing on the streets of new york during the storm. they were empty, but today with public transportation shut down, and the crane disruption, commuters sat for hours and hours and hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic. we ran into a lot of trouble ourselves as we tried to get to hoboken. it took us a half hour to move two blocks and another two plus hours to get to hoboken which is five miles away. hopefully this will make the commute easier for some, tomorrow parts of the new york city subway will reopen which is miraculous because the pictures you're seeing, that's still the case in some parts of the system but they've managed to open other parts. it's an incredible testament to

new york. still to come, coming to the rescue, i spent the day with the national guard in hoboken, new jersey, going door to door helping people from their homes and governor cuomo of new york visited what's left of a queens neighborhood torched by a massive fire. residents tried to come home for the first time and for some they found nothing. and the politics of sandy, john king has a map to show you of pretty incredible, actually two, one shows areas of the power out and the other of those residents who voted in the last election. try running four.ning a restaurant is hard, fortunately we've got ink. it gives us 5x the rewards on our internet, phone charges and cable, plus at office supply stores.

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incredibly battered community. >> reporter: they searched through the ashes and took the few things that survived hurricane sandy's unexpected inferno. >> i have the cross from my rosary beads when i made my holy communion. >> reporter: how many years ago was that? >> got to be about 70 years ago. >> reporter: katie gallagher raised five kids and grandkids over four decades, found nothing. >> pictures, memories, my husband died a few years ago, his favorite desk that he absolutely loved and everything i have of him, just all gone. >> reporter: as families searched for belongings, fire, search and rescue teams that made sure no one had disappeared in the fire. >> although we have no reports of people missing, we can't take anything for granted so we're going through all of the structurally compromised buildings, the remains of fire damaged areas and looking for anyone that could be trapped.

>> reporter: it includes firefighter, police and first responders, lost many people on 9/11 as they did then, they came together now. >> this is his only house. we're all so close here. >> reporter: so one loss is a loss for everyone. >> absolutely. >> reporter: new york's governor made a brief appearance to see the devastation up close. >> to see the families coming in and coming out, and how you can have your life overturned in 24 hours and they were in their home, they had their belongings, and now their lives are gone, their lives are shattered, they're looking for places to stay, and coming back, to literally pick up the pieces of their lives. >> reporter: pieces which neighbors and friends will use to rebuild. >> sandy has thrown the presidential candidates off track in the last crucial days of the campaign. now there is concern the power outages caused by the storm could affect voting. john king, what have you been finding on that question?

we've been hearing that question from more and more people. >> let's hope with six days to go, five full days to work that utility officials and state and local officials get most of this fixed. if you look at the map the areas that are not green have been impacted by superstorm sandy when it comes to power outages. deb feyerick was talking about the new york city area. the darker the color the higher number of people without power. new york you move down to the state of new jersey, incredibly hard hit along the shoreline. we know new york and new jersey likely to go democratic. let's walk over to the state of pennsylvania and look at this, you see this down here, let me help you understand this chart a little bit. i'm going to pop it out and this explains the darker the color the higher the number of people without power so as we come back to the state of pennsylvania i want to show you something. if you look it's obvious to the naked eye in this area here is where you see more people without power, scranton a lentown, reading, down here in philadelphia and the suburbs,

about 100,000, maybe a little more than that out of power in philadelphia and month dpgomery bucks county alone. let's look at how they voted in the last election. if the problems persist right there that tells you more of a problem for the president and if there's no power at polling stations, no power in houses, if people decide too much hassle i can't vote. pennsylvania is an absentee ballot state but not early vote so long it's not a question now. the question is can they get the power restored come election day. another battleground state in the state of ohio this is a place where the obama campaign worked very hard in early voting in the african-american community in the cleveland area, right here, cuyahoga county here. i'll draw a big line, cleveland, the cleveland suburbs and to a lesser degree down here to the south in the akron area people without power, put it to the same test, how did they vote in 2008, you see some republicans in the more rural counties but across the top of the state the

northern part of the state heavy democratic areas, our producer called out too cuyahoga today early voting down a bit today than it was four years ago so you see some obvious immediate impact. the question is again, with the few more days to go, five more days can they get this fixed come election day. one more quick example in the northern virginia suburbs and again to the naked eye it tells the story. still a lot of people out right on the northern washington d.c. area, right there, fairfax county, arlington, go back four years, you see all that blue, this is the area most critical to president obama. he has to win the state of virginia, has to be a high turnout. when you call into the communities they think they'll get it fixed in time for tuesday but something to keep an eye on. >> john when you talked to the two campaigns, i know they don't want to talk about it this way but do either of them see this benefiting them, the end of the day, when push comes to shove? >> it's fascinating they give you the same answer and how rare is it the romney obama campaigns give you the same answer.

they say we're not going to talk about that in any public way. privately they say they think it's a wash if the power comes back on. the obama campaign is worried about the early voting. the ads have not come down, the candidates have not been active in the effected states. so they're slugging it out on the air waves. privately both campaigns do think if there's any benefit it would be a slight benefit to the guy who is president of the united states. there have been no huge complaints about the federal response, actually a lot of compliments including republican governor chris christie in new jersey. if there's a slight advantage it would go to the president but both sides think if it is, it's pretty slight. >> thanks very much to john king. coming up next i was in hoboken today with the national guard. we'll show you the pictures and tell you about the people we met who are stranded in their own homes on a night where the temperatures are now starting to rapidly drop. and the monumental task of getting the lights back on, when crews can't get through the debris. residents resort to other means

of transportation just to get -- those stories still to come. because of business people like you. and regions is here to help. with the experience and service to keep things rolling. from business loans to cash management, we want to be your partner moving forward. so switch to regions. and let's get going. together.

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just across the hudson river from new york city hoboken, new jersey, is nearly at a breaking

point. nearly 20,000 people could be trapped in their homes tonight, at one point three-quarters of that entire city was under water. 90% of the people are without power. some of the power lines are dropping onto the road. it's getting cold tonight and we just returned from hoboken where i went out with national guard troops trying to reach stranded residents. and it looks like we don't have -- and here we go. this is the staging area for the national guard. dozens of guards are here to evacuate anywhere from 15 to 20,000 people who are still trapped by surging floodwaters. as we rolled out the scene quickly degrades from dry roads to waist-high water, cars abandoned in the middle of the street, not a sidewalk in sight. water full of oil, debris and sewage, up to 25% of the city is still submerged in water and less than a mile into a trip a

man walking with his belongings in a large garbage bag. how bad was it? >> bad. all of my clothes are all messed up, the whole door is caved in there. >> reporter: hector santiago is the superintendent of this flooded building. water is receding but images like this car bring home the magnitude of the storm's wrath here. >> we have a guy having chest problems they want to get him out. >> reporter: a couple of their friends brought their boats here to help with the rescue. at times the water is so deep our humvee can't get through so we went looking for a larger truck, found one in the middle of a rescue. even the national guard are relying on cell phones with service spotty to nonexistent so we had to drive through the neighborhood to find yet another. that one had finally reached the man having chest pains in this building. instead of being evacuated, he chose to stay to ride it out like he rode out the storm. many residents here want to stay, despite the fumes, the water, the lack of power, and

tonight, conditions will be even worse, temperatures have been dropping all day and there's no heat, but that isn't stopping the national guard. how many people do you think you've been able to get? >> i don't know, we're not really keeping track. we're just trying to get as many as we can. it's about helping our neighbor. >> it is about helping our neighbors and that's -- there were all young men trying to save people and help people. it was pretty humbling and inspiring. brian todd is also out in hoboken today and out front tonight. where you are, i know the floodwaters have come down a little bit today when we were there. what are you seeing tonight? >> reporter: well, erin, they have receded a little bit today but they're still lingering and the mayor says they're going to be around for at least another 24 hours. i'm at the corner of park avenue and newark street here, water coming up to almost my knees at this point. it does get a little shallower as you make your way toward the middle. this is a corner where a storm

drain is, tends to be where the worst areas of flooding are. these two cars have been stranded for a couple of days. big concern here is kind of a health concern, this water is absolutely filthy, sewage, chemicals all over the place, a lot of other matter that is really almost unthinkable when you think of what's floating around here and the mayor expressed her concern about how unhealthy it is and why people should not necessarily do what we're doing. two national guard vehicles went through here, erin, you were just reporting on that so they are going around picking people up. that is ongoing so this city is certainly not out of the woods yet as far as some of the danger and some of the flooding. >> reporter: you talk about the water, some of it was flying up in our face it looks oily and gross. i know there was rausu wanlg in it, it's a horrible health risk and everyone is wading through it. you've got on boots even though you shouldn't be in it. lot of people have makeshift

plastic bags and things like that. >> reporter: right. >> the city has pumps but how long are you hearing it's going to be before they can clear it out? >> reporter: we're hearing projections of at least a couple of days. when you see what's going on around the streets you understand why. we have not seen a lot of high volume pumping going on at least in this area. what we've seen is volunteers, community volunteers coming on their own with hoes and picks to clear out the storm drain. there is he a storm drain below where i'm standing, gets kind of deep. they're coming in hip waders and boots clearing out storm drains on their own, local citizens volunteering and an intersection a block away got completely cleared of water, took them a couple hours, three or four guys working consistently trying to clear the debris from the storm drains did it. if they have to rely on that it's going to take longer than a couple of days. >> brian todd thank you so much

reporting from hoboken. we'll keep an eye out on the story. the health danger with the water, 20,000 people sitting in apartments with the water sitting in front of them is a big problem, nevermind the cold and the lack of power and as you saw in our piece, people who have health problems who are still afraid to leave. later in the show we'll show you the hoboken hospital and i think that's going to leave some of you very concerned. tonight sandy is forcing another new york city hospital to evacuate. this time due to damage and loss of power, bellevue hospital is the oldest hospital in north america and moving nearly 700 patients from the facility. the hospital had been operating on a generator since losing power during the storm. >> they didn't think the damage was that bad, and we did have a generator going and the national guard helped carry fuel up to the roof because that's where the fuel tank was and they were running out but the bottom line is when they got into the basement they realized there was more damage.

>> the corporation which operates bellevue thank you for taking the time you heard mayor bloomberg say you hadn't realized how bad the situation was until now. what happened and how could it have been they didn't realize? >> well it was very clear that we had a serious situation with the cavernous basement completely inundated with water, about a million square feet of space and we estimate about 17 million gallons of water eventually was sitting in there, so we wanted to pump out enough so that we could assess whether it would be at all possible to repair some of the distribution grid that would allow us to power up some of the other essential systems in the building, the emergency generators, so just not enough to keep this hospital operating for a longer term. >> and are you able to get all of the people in critical care, you can imagine all of the situations, with the life-saving

equipment, are all those people going to be okay? >> yes, thankfully they are. we had 725 patients in this hospital when the storm hit. there are now 260 patients aw t awaiting transfer. we started actually yesterday moving the critical care patients even before it was clear to us that it would be impossible to maintain operations at this hospital for a longer term. so the most vulnerable patients have been transferred and there are still 260 patients to be moved, most of them were moved tonight, will be fully done by tomorrow. >> and this isn't the only new york city hospital forced to evacua evacuate. i remember monday night lanagain to medical center had to evacuate patients. the first question is do you have enough hospital beds for all these people and secondly was it that you didn't foresee the magnitude of this storm, that the hospitals weren't prepared or that the hospitals could never be prepared for this sort of event and this is what's

going to happen if a storm like this comes again? >> well this was an unprecedented event. we weathered hurricane irene 14 or 15 months ago with the same emergency preparations and it didn't come close to endangering the hospital. this hospital sits 20 feet above sea level, we're actually 15 feet higher than nyu hospital next door because the terrain rises slightly here, so it was obviously not anticipated that we would get a storm surge of this magnitude, the national hurricane center was predicting even at its highest 11-foot storm surge, so clearly here out of the east river, just because of the way the waters were being pushed and the level of the wind speeds, we wound up getting a lot of water here. we've never seen anything like this at bellevue hospital. >> thank you very much. we appreciate your taking the time tonight. the monumental task of removing debris and getting the

lights turned back on is under way on long island, new york. complicating matter this is evening, roadways are still blocked by floodwaters and preventing about 5,000 utility workers from even starting to restore power to parts of that island. republican congressman peter king from long island is out front tonight, chairman of the house homeland security committee. chairman good to talk to you. >> thank you, erin. >> i wish it weren't under these circumstances. >> yes. >> how long do you think before things start to get back to normal at all? so many people are at home and as bad as things are at home they want to try to have normalcy in their life. >> right now i'm at the emergency command center in nassau county with county executive mangano, state police, fema, fire departments, basically everyone who could possibly be involved, and that is the goal to get things back to normal as quickly as possible. the reality is, though, that there's 1.1 million customers

for the long island power authority, over 900,000 are without power so it's almost 90% of the people on long island are without power. there's hundreds and hundreds of trees down, still hundreds of traffic lights out there and flooding. every effort is being made, there is progress being made and some power has already been restored but it's brutal. this is really our version of katrina. i'm not saying any two tragedies are alike but i've been touring the south shore today in my district and massapequa, lindenhurst, what you're showing is typical of many areas on long isla island. fema the county executives are meeting with fema to set up compact plans as to how that recovery will take place. workers are coming in from all over the country to restore the power but it's a tough haul. i don't want to give anyone any false hope. everything that can be done is

being done. i think over the next several days you will see more power being restored but this could go on for another ten days to two weeks. >> are there people still missing? what we saw in hoboken, new jersey, 20,000 people are still there, stuck with water beneath their apartments and their homes but there are a lot of people who chose to ride this storm out, a lot of people who weren't in areas that were supposed to be at high risk and they're still there. >> yes, for instance long beach, which is an island probably 34,000 people on the island, many of them stayed, and i was talking to several people today, just anecdotal but friends of theirs who cannot find their wife or their daughters or their sons, cousins, people in homes who made frantic phone calls at 11:00, 12:00 on sunday night and the phone went dead and the people haven't been seen since. now they could well be in shelters, there's virtually no communication with long beach island right now. police are out there. they're going door-to-door but again there is a concern there are people who are missing who may not be accounted for but as

of now, there are no known fatalities in these areas but again, there are people who are still missing, yes. >> chairman, we keep hearing everyone say we did everything we could, we were ready for this storm and i don't mean to say it's not true, it's certainly what i've experienced. i've never seen new york city shut down the way it did and put out the warnings it did. there's no question authorities took this seriously. do you think people didn't, authorities didn't understand how severe this storm was, that perhaps some of what we're seeing right now in terms of people who are trapped and missing could have been prevented? >> not really. i guess anything could be done better but in this case people who are trapped, people were trapped and could be missing right now are people who chose to stay there, county executives from both counties urged people, ordered people to leave, they refused to leave and this is what's happening as a result of that. all of the people who are missing all of these people who were trapped all came from areas where they were ordered to evacuate, they did not evacuate and this is one of the

consequences of that. >> let me ask you one final question about new york city. you spoke with the homeland security secretary today, janet napolitano. >> yes. >> are you worried about new york given in a sense it's vulnerable right now. >> listen, i have great faith in new york and commissioner kelly and mayor bloomberg, but no, we have to be concerned. this is the most devastating natural disaster to hit new york, the subway system is shut down, bridges and tunnels shut down. i was born and raised in new york city, my father was a city cop for over 30 years, never underestimate the spirit and vitality of new york. new york will come back stronger than ever. >> it sure will. i believe that and i think everyone around the world is rooting for that, too. chairman thank you four why are time. still to come we showed you the president touring the damage caused by sandy with new jersey governor chris christie. the governor had a lot of praise for the president. could the president's response affect election day? and the loss of power

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the president did tour the garden state's battered coastline with new jersey's republican governor and governor christie who has been a key and very early romney supporter was, he said what he thought was true, he said that the president had done a good job on the storm. >> i cannot thank the president enough for his personal concern and compassion for our state and for the people of our state. >> a senior adviser to the romney campaign, bay buchanan, thank you for taking the time. >> delighted. >> let's start with the comment. do you think the president's done a good job? >> the president of the united states, i don't think anybody would know better than governor christie and he's worked closely with those governors and stayed on top of it, so i see no reason why not to believe what governor christie has to say. >> is it hard to see a key romney surrogate heaping praise on the president, whether it's fair, merited or not. chris christie is one of the

main guys out there fighting for romney. >> you know i think, what i think you're seeing here is republicans have a tendency to be honest if somebody's doing a good job and be honest if they're not. they'll lay it out there. governor romney made a strong case against barack obama and his failed policies and now it's done an enormous amount of damage to americans across the country. that's the case we're making because of the big decisions next week and governor christie is with mitt romney, understands the failed policies of barack obama but working with them on this storm and feels he's working very well with him. >> it is an image that sticks in some people's mines. "the wall street journal" wrote a headline about the storm and underneath the headline about the storm which is the top story around the country is "race is back on after storm hiatus." smaller font but it made the front page. that's something, but barely

making the front page. has the hiatus slowed mitt romney's momentum? are you hoping whatever people thought before the storm they froze whatever they're going to do and still going to do it and not going to swing back to the president because of the storm? >> that will have to be seen. there's no question we have five days left that the momentum is with us, has been now for a long time. obviously you stop campaigning for a few days, you have to come back, see what happens out there but the key is, we've been living under barack obama for four years. americans know exactly the impact his policies have had on him, enormouslile chaeninging and what mitt romney is offering them is a break from the status quo, not four more years but four years of promises of new jobs and a fresh start for millions of americans, a brighter future for their children, it's a clear choice here, erin, and i don't think three days of us being worried and praying for the victims of this storm are going to change four years of aboutment. . >> what about, though, then just the bottom line here, which is

the path to 270 without ohio is difficult but not impossible. ohio the polls haven't changed at all. you talk about momentum, but i'm looking here at florida, ohio and vrnl but look at ohio, 50 for the president, 45 for mitt romney. that's outside the margin of error. >> that's one poll. there's other polls showing it very, very close, within the margin of error. in fact i saw a poll right before the storm that had a tie there. i'll tell you what's key, erin, to look at now just a few days left and that is barack obama has not broken 50%. he's down in the 47%, 48%, has been for what the better part of two months now. he can't break that number whether it's ohio or florida or virginia, colorado, and on election day there's a couple things that are going to matter. if you're undecided, those undecides will break for the challengers, that's what's historically known, that's four years they'd already know if they'd be with the president or not. they'll break with the

challengers, in addition it's your ground game. we have an amazing ground game, we're going to have our votes out there, the intensity is with us. all the fundamentals of this campaign are with mitt romney and that's because he's the best candidate out there with a great, great deal to offer the american voters. >> thank you very much. we appreciate your time, and next as much as the nation focuses on sandy, the candidates are increasing that focus on ohio. without it, it's almost impossible to become president, not impossible, i said almost. john avalon going to look at the ground game after this. and the sandy cell phone phenomenon, just if you look at this, we'll hold it up for a second, what you're looking at here is, well a charging station. when we drive our satellite trucks to some of these places, people flock, we're going to show you why. everyone has goals. take the steps to reach yours, with us with real advice, for real goals. the us bank wealth management advisor can help you. every step of the way. from big steps, to little steps.

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well, as everyone focuses on the storm and it's effect on the election, let's talk about that. the election could come down to ohio. our new cnn poll shows 49-46 in favor of the president.

he is in youngstown, ohio. don, let me ask you this, is it possible we may not know who won the election on elocatiection n? >> that is the nightmare scenario. here is what it could look like. 1.4 million ohioans have requested the ballots but they won't be counted until up to ten days after the election. it is within that margin of error. it could be november 16th before we know who won ohio and possibly the presidency. >> that is a nightmare scenario.

it is halloween. >> and i know the focus there is on early voting and i know you have spoken to people in ohio this week. here they are. >> the other side has so much more money. and we win why grass roots politics and people going to the polls early voting. you can go down to tomorrow morning at 8:00 am. it is important. this enabled us to be free on election day. >> who has the upper hand on early voting, john. >> democrats have a narrow edge. a couple of thousand votes on the key districts. that is one of the reasons that the volunteers help voterly. get voters to the polls.

democrats invest a huge effort in the early votes because it is money in the bank. they are k looing to pull this out in the buk buckeye state. something i saw today. neighbors helping neighbors. because of business people like you. and regions is here to help. with the experience and service to keep things rolling. from business loans to cash management, we want to be your partner moving forward. so switch to regions. and let's get going. together.

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in hoboken, new jersey today we saw a community in distress. this is a hospital there. closed. the doors were open, there was a homemade sign indicateing call 911 we can't help. while there were reports of luting at a store there, i want to focus on people in darkness shopping at the only local grocery store. they were waiting patiently to buy food and supplies. we showed you the good samaritans who brought boats to shep the national guard. two of them said they haven't slept since the storm. they are still out there trying to help people. hobokeners